Trigger warning: I am going to talk about my miscarriage by way of physical and mental detail. I also use strong language.
He would have started school this year (pretend for this story the pandemic didn’t happen). Little backpack filled with supplies and pencils. It’s been five years since my miscarriage. I’m sure there have been days that have gone by that I have not thought about that baby, but I like to believe there isn’t. Like Tully and Moira, it was a surprise (but welcome) pregnancy. Lee and I aren’t that good at natural family planning, maybe because I wouldn’t pay the $4.99 for the app on my phone and just used the free version. Even though we wanted to start trying in January, it was only a little early at the beginning of August when we found out we were pregnant. We were very excited. I went for my first appointment with the midwife and looking back on it now, I think I knew unconsciously something was wrong. I remember asking them to do a pregnancy test in the office. Why would I have made an appointment and then when I got there asked them to do a pregnancy test?
September 14th, we were in FL on vacation. After a trip to the bathroom, I knew something was wrong. I called my midwife, she said “Oh, bleeding happens sometimes in the first trimester. I’m sure you are fine. Come in the office when you get back.”
I didn’t care what the midwife said. I knew. I just knew. He was gone. I prayed to God that when I actually lost him it would not hurt and that I would be in a private place and not embarrass my family.
Four days later, I woke up from a nap, stood up and felt a ripping deep within myself. I ran to the bathroom; picking up those broken pieces from the dirty hotel bathroom floor will haunt my nightmares forever. Lee and I went to the emergency room where they made me sit for hours in the waiting room with blinking florescent lights and screaming drug addicts begging for pain medication. Sitting in a pool of my own blood, hoping I was not bleeding to death, I could not even cry out to God. God cried out to me. In that horrible, filthy room sitting in a blood soaked wheelchair, I heard the audible voice of God say
“Jessica, name this child.”
“Fuck off” I said.
“You are his mother. You will name him ******.”
I named him. I imagined him being held in Jesus’s arms. I named him the name I was told to name him.
That was when I begin to cry. Not because of the loss of my child, but because I had heard the Holy Spirit talking to me. When I was able to tell Lee, he looked up the name on his phone. The name means “name of God” or “God has heard”.
In the months that followed, friends and family supported me and loved me and Lee. A deep hatred for everyone and everything started to creep in. A person would bring me a gift. I would hide it away in a closet. A friend would buy or cook us a meal. I’d eat a sandwich. Anger burned within my heart so hot it melted any joy around me. I like to think people did not notice, but I’m sure they did. I do not think you could have hated and abhor everyone and everything this much and it not show on your face when they spoke to you.
Lee and I beginning trying for another baby that February. We found out we were pregnant in March. Easter was early that year, on March 27th. When that double pink line popped, I was simultaneously overjoyed and anxious. I did not want to have another miscarriage. It was Holy Week and Lee and I were a little preoccupied to make any stressful announcements, that hotel bathroom/emergency room horror show still in my mind. Since I was only 4 weeks pregnant, Lee and I decided not to tell anyone until we had our first ultrasound. One of the foulest things about having a miscarriage is having to tell people.
Around 3:00 AM on Good Friday, I woke up and had to use the bathroom. I usually don’t turn on the lights in the bathroom in the middle of the night, but I did that day. Blood. Wiped again. Blood.
“REALLY?!? Not again God.” I stumbled to the living room and turned on “Lord I Need You” by Matt Maher on the TV. Until my alarm when off at 7:00 AM, I laid face down on the floor with that song on repeat.
Lord, I come, I confess
Bowing here I find my rest
Without You I fall apart
You’re the One that guides my heart
Lord, I need You, oh I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You
Where sin runs deep Your grace if more
Where grace is found is where You are
Where You are, Lord, I am free
Holiness is Christ in me
Lord, I need You, Oh I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You
So teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
When I cannot stand I’ll fall on You
Jesus, You’re my hope and stay
Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You
Good Friday at St. Aidan’s:
A Sanctuary covered in blackness. Smoke dimed what light was left in the room from the extinguished candles. A bell tolled “It is finished”. My knees, again on the floor crying out to a God I had killed,
“I need you!” I cried.
In the loneliness of death, another ripping was felt deep within me, except this time it was deep within my soul. All my hate, all my anger, all of it pulled out of me. It felt just like before but what was left was not an empty womb but a full heart. God had miraculously healed my soul. I knew even if I lost this baby I was carrying that it would be ok. God had not forgotten me. Jesus was holding me in his arms.
Eight hard, stressful months later, I held Iain in my arms. He is my miracle baby. The midwife and several high risk doctors could not figure out why I had bleed that early morning on Good Friday. I am so glad I did though. Would I have laid on the floor asking for God to heal me if I had not? I would like to think that my heart would have not been so full of hate and anger eventually, but I don’t think that’s how things ever really work, do you? I could not have replaced that hate in my heart with another child or another job or things. I know, I have a master’s degree in Clinical Counseling so I know how stages of grief work. This was not a gradual releasing of anger, it was there one minute and gone as soon as I said “I need You!” at the altar. An anger that deep could only be healed by God, not time or anything manmade.
I love the new imagine that’s around on social media. The one with the ball (your grief), inside of a box (you) with a button (your pain). The bigger the ball the more you hit the button as life makes the ball bounce around. The pain button never goes away, but your grief ball eventually gets smaller and hits the button less often. My grief is still there, bouncing around hitting the pain button, but with God’s help it does not control my life. If you are suffering with a pain like mine I am not discrediting therapy or medication or Confession. I think those are all needed at different times in our life. I am so lucky to have such a supportive church family, friends and family that loved Lee and I through this dark time in our lives. Grief never goes away, why would we want it to? Grief is the reminder that we were given the opportunity to love someone deeply, but if our grief, anger and hate are controlling us, it’s time to put our pride aside and ask for help.
Note: I have opted to leave out the name God gave Lee and I for our child. It is still too painful and private to say again out loud. Every September 17th, I say his name in my heart and wish him a happy birthday in Heaven, knowing he is better off than all of us because he is in Jesus arms.
WorstNunEver 